BATMAN: LEGACY
by True Believer
Summary: Hundreds of years in the future a disaffected young man takes up the mantle of the Batman, but he's not the first. A long legacy of Batmen has protected Gotham city and now it's latest incarnation must show the city what he's made of. CHAPTER 3 NOW UP
1. Genesis

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Firstly I want to say that Batman does not belong to me. This is just a little pipe dream I had when I first heard the concept for Batman Beyond and now I've decided to write a little opening story. The concept will be explained a little into the story but all readers should know that this story is set about four hundred hears on from Batman Beyond in a post-apocalyptic world.  
  
BATMAN: LEGACY  
  
A scream wailed out into the night and reached a pair of ears covered by a black cowl. The costumed figure stood up from its crouch on the corner of the dilapidated tenement block. Its talons raked the red brick as it launched its body towards the sounds of peril. In a flash of shadow a huge cloak grew out from its shoulders and its corners found their way into the gloved hands.  
  
The young man backed up against the wall as the gang members surrounded his prone form. He slunk down the wall into a crouch and started to cry as one of the thugs drew out a bat wrapped in barbed wire. The thugs drew into a tight semi-circle against the back wall of the abandoned Old Gotham cinema. One bat rose and another bat fell as the Batman descended onto the alley floor. A quiet crack rang out and was followed by a sound only describable by likening it to a sauce being squeezed from a packet.  
  
"Holy shit it's him!" somebody shouted.  
  
"It's the Bat-" the snap of a swivel kick took the words from the mouth of the man holding the bat. A sharp mechanical sound burst forth from the Batman and a streetlamp burst nearby. The alley was now in darkness and the huddled young man's eyes went wide as he heard several grunts, curses and bloodcurdling screams accompanied by the snap of bones and swish of limbs flying smoothly through the air. His bloodshot eyes began to adjust to the alley's dim lighting and he could see a black shadow crouched like a tiger ready to pounce, the Batman, and a man with a bleached white face holding a gun to the back of his head.  
  
After kicking the last of the grunts Batman landed into a crouch, his sonar- like internal sensors adjusting after the rapid movement. He felt a smooth round metal object come in contact with the back of his skull, a click rang out that signalled the pistol was cocked. The last thought that rang through the Batman's head was not a prayer, it was not a regret, it was curiosity.  
  
"Where did you get ammunition from?" he asked.  
  
"Same place as last time Bats old chum," Joker replied then fired the gun, "I always keep a spare." The Joker smiled even more than usual as he watched the Batman slump, dead, to the pavement. The Joker then proceeded to turn on his heel and skip off whistling 'pop goes the weasel' out of the alleyway and into the lit main street of Old Gotham.  
  
Several minutes later the young man was finally certain that he would be safe he crawled out from behind the dented garbage cans and moved over to the Batman's corpse. He picked up a thin wooden plank and poked the costumed corpse, it didn't move. Once satisfied the Batman wasn't going to be moving any time soon he began to feel the costume for hidden pockets that might contain food, money or a weapon. When his fingertips touched the embossed bat symbol on his chest some writing flashed up in yellow, an address. Intrigued, the young man hid the Batman out of sight under a pile of rubble around the corner and set off out of the alley in search of the address of the Batman. The young man's name was John Kane, and he'd always been an inquisitive person, this usually only lead to trouble like it had earlier when the clown's men ambushed him.  
  
Addresses were starting to become useless in Old Gotham. John wandered the streets for a few hours in an eerie full-mooned night; it was obviously the very early hours of the morning now as people were sheltering themselves in the abandoned buildings of Amusement Mile. Eventually John found a street sign that showed he was where he needed to be and he looked around. Opposite the street sign there was a surprisingly intact building emblazoned with a logo John didn't recognise.  
  
"Wayne Tech R.A.D." he read aloud to himself. He turned away from the building, thinking he'd been sent on a wild goose chase, and then he blinked and his eyes flashed back. John crossed the street, or at least what remained of it, and looked closely at the sign. He'd have sworn on his mother's grave that the W of Wayne looked like a bat when he'd turned to walk away. His inquisitive nature led him into the building and he opened the door onto a completely empty room with dusty grey concrete walls, floor and ceiling. The only light source in the room when he closed the door was a hole on the far side of the ceiling that shone a jagged star of moonlight onto a patch of floor. John walked up to the dusty far wall and looked up at the stars through the hole on the ceiling, it was a dead end.  
  
John's head sank, he'd been almost enjoying this little adventure, it had taken his mind off his close escape earlier that night. Then he spotted something, a semi-circular wedge right at his eye-level that upon closer inspection appeared to be the toe of an army style boot. He looked down and saw more footprints following his own, footprints that strangely disappeared in the middle of the room. He got on his hands and knees and backtracked along the booted footprints to a very thin line just visible through the dust. He traced the line around into a square outlined on the floor and gasped in success; he'd found a trapdoor. He stood up and stood on the square but nothing happened. He jumped up and down but still nothing happened.  
  
"Damn." He said under his breath as he slumped to sit cross-legged on the floor. Then he had an idea.  
  
John huffed and puffed as he dragged the heavy corpse of the Batman into the concrete room. As soon as the door was closed behind him hidden lights came on and the trapdoor opened.  
  
"Yes, I knew it!" John exclaimed under his breath. He'd had a hunch that the Batman's costume held the secret to his hidden sanctum and he wasn't feeling quite up to leaving the man's body naked in that alleyway. He hefted the Batman up onto his shoulders again and carried him down the hidden steps and into the room beneath.  
  
The room inside the hatch wasn't as much a room in that it was a miniature train station, there was a platform and a train and everything. The train went into a tunnel that had a slight angle on it, pointing towards what was once called Tri Corner and was now just New Gotham.  
  
"Figures that Old Gotham's champion is one of those daylighters," John said to himself. He walked towards the small black train, emblazoned with a yellow bat of course, and the door opened to a comfy looking cabin. John hefted the Batman inside and sat down next to the corpse. For a moment he thought about the stupidity of the situation, he was sat in a secret underground train station with the corpse of a superhero and it would be daylight soon. He got up to get out but the train door closed, from out of nowhere a thin stretch of something shot out and bound him to his seat.  
  
"Good morning Batman," a neat female voice said, coming from a set of small speakers in front of him, "the next stop will be the Main Cave and the journey will be roughly three minutes. Please remain still." There was a humming coming from the train that slowly rose higher and higher in pitch as its engine reached full power.  
  
"Oh shi-"  
  
Screeching brakes sent sparks flying into Batman's cavernous inner sanctum, dissolving into the air before hitting the ground. The door of the train slid open and John stepped out into cave, a few seconds later ceilings lamps lit sequentially and showed all the marvels hidden away underground. There was a giant silver coin, an enormous computer, a large playing card, a puppet in a box, what seemed to be a life-size model Tyrannosaurus Rex and a long glass case full of costumes. In the back of the room where two sets of stairs, the first was winding upwards to a large arched door and the second was straight and led downwards to a small sombre looking doorway with a red bat symbol embossed on the door. The door at the top of the winding stairs opened and a tall thin man with greying hair and a thin moustache, he took his steps evenly and quickly and shouted out without looking down to where John stood.  
  
"Good morning Master Jeremiah, how did your-" he suddenly looked up to see John standing there and the body of the Batman inside the carriage, "what did you do?" "I didn't do anything, he saved me but then this pale man killed him so I brought his body to the address on his chest." John said in one breath.  
  
"Who are you?" the thin man asked cautiously.  
  
"John Kane," he replied, "what about you?"  
  
"I'm just the butler," the thin man said as he brushed past John and hefted the Batman's body onto an examination table in a dark corner, "and I have a friend to see to. Please take a seat, don't touch or do anything until I tell you."  
  
The butler used a small black device to pop open a seal on the Batman's chest and slowly the black costume the Batman wore began to ooze like a liquid into the Batman insignia on his chest and back. Soon all that was left of the costume was the boots, gloves and a cowl and shoulder section. The butler took these pieces of costume off too and pushed the examination table in through the small door with the red bat insignia. The door shut behind him with a finality that John did not like.  
  
John sat in the same place, not moving, not doing anything or touching anything for some time. He didn't have a watch and there didn't seem to be any clocks in here so he couldn't tell how long, but when the butler came out of the little door pushing the examination table again he didn't look happy.  
  
"I'm sorry if I was rude earlier Mr. Kane but I was a little distraught at the death of my master," he looked away for a moment then composed himself, "he'd been serving as the Batman for quite some time now, I considered him a good friend."  
  
"I'm sorry for your loss," John replied truthfully.  
  
"Thank you Mr. Kane, now if you'll follow me there's something I have to show you," he said and walked over to the enormous computer. He pressed a small button in the very centre of the keyboard and a sombre grey-haired old man appeared on the screen.  
  
"Hello," the old man said as he interlaced his fingers. He was wearing a style of suit that was so old even old people didn't wear them anymore and he was sat in a chair facing the same computer John now faced, he also noticed a cane leant against the arm.  
  
"My name is Bruce Wayne, and I am Batman. The first Batman. You are here because you are about to join a very small number of people, men and women who have fought and died to honour the symbol of the bat. Most likely you have just witnessed the death of the previous Batman and this will probably not endear you to the task."  
  
"Yeah, too right," John said under his breath.  
  
"But," Wayne continued, "I can tell you that if the man you saw die is anything like me, then he sacrificed his life gladly. I know that every night I went out on patrol I knew that the odds were I wouldn't be coming back but I still went. I still went because the people of my city needed me, where there was suffering, where there was pain, the Batman was there and he helped. The Batman is not just there to beat up thugs and disappear into the shadows; the Batman is a symbol a hope, of justice for those who have been wronged. In short, Gotham needs the Batman. If you don't take up the mantle there will be no more Batman. I never regretted any of the sacrifices I made, take my advice and try it on for size."  
  
"Not an amazingly inspiring speech is it?" the butler said when it was finished, "but it was made in a much simpler time, hundreds of years ago when Gotham was a much easier place to live. You know why I think people like you still put on the suit?"  
  
"Why?" John said, inwardly admitting he did want to try it out.  
  
"You've a darksider aren't you? You live in Old Gotham?"  
  
"Yeah, but weren't you telling me why I should do this?"  
  
"You've probably suffered, you've probably felt scared, helpless," as the butler spoke John's mind cast itself back to earlier that night, "and if you're the kind of man I think you are then you would want to make sure hat nobody else has to go through what you've been through. You want to be a hero." The butler paused for dramatic effect, "Correct?"  
  
"I-" John paused and thought about what he was about to say, "I'd like to give it a try."  
  
"Well let's get you suited up Master John," the butler said with a thin- lipped smile, "by the way, my name is David."  
  
Ten minutes later John was wearing the boots, gloves and shoulder-armour of the Batman. David stood by to one side with the ebony cowl in his hand and looked at John in the armour.  
  
"I have to tell you something about the suit," he said as he stepped slightly closer with the cowl in his hands, "the suit was developed at the height of technological advance before the war. It was specifically designed to adapt to every host it encounters, it is in truth a sentient life form in and of itself that bonds physically with its host. It links to your body synapses and helps you to adjust to the power boost it gives you."  
  
"What?" John said, looking confused.  
  
"I think it'd be better if you just put it on." David walked over to stand behind John and slowly lowered the cowl onto John's shoulders. There was a soft hiss as the locking mechanism closed the seal on the costume and then the black oil that comprised the symbiotic Batman costume oozed out and began to come together into a sort of shadowy second skin. In front of John's eyes a green-highlighted display screen flashed up and a green power bar rose to one hundred percent, he felt new power coursing through his veins as the costume energised him. His muscles pumped and it felt as though his heart was beating louder and faster, his senses seemed to expand and the world seemed to reveal all its secrets to him.  
  
"I can, feel everything," John said in a gasp.  
  
"The suit links all of its sensory equipment directly to your central nervous system, in effect the suit becomes an extension of you." David explained.  
  
"Hey, you seem to know a lot about this," John said, turning to look at David, "how many Batmen have you served anyway?"  
  
"Since my father stepped down and left me completely in charge of looking after the Batman's affairs?" David said and he looked up as he counted to himself, "seven in all, and eight more wards."  
  
"Seven?" John was concerned, "how long have you been doing this?"  
  
"About eighteen years."  
  
"So the average Batman has a shelf life of under three years?" John said, almost shouting, "why didn't you tell me before I got all jazzed up about the suit?"  
  
"You wouldn't have accepted." David replied quickly before dismissing the subject with a wave of a hand, "you should try the suit out, if nothing else you can check out the daylight world. See if it's all its cracked up to be."  
  
A black army boot stepped onto the floor of a pristinely clean white cube of a room; it was dark outside and looked roughly an hour before the little bands of sun peeped over the horizon. The pair of boots began to step more quickly, John ran forwards and leapt into the air and pushed off the wall with the toe of his boot. His enhanced strength allowed the small push to throw him far into the air and out of a small square hole in the roof of the white room. Instinctively John spread his arms wide and the black cloak shot into his hands, the talons of his thumbs locking into the cloak as he slowly glided across the dark night sky.  
  
He landed on the wall of a large building and his talons dug in, anchoring him in place for a moments rest before leaping away from the building again he flapped his cloak and rose several hundred feet up. He knew the physical effect from flapping his cloak couldn't have done that and presumed some sort of thrusters were hidden in the suit. He rode the air currents and dodged the suspended roadways and anti-grav vehicles to land on a high rooftop. John stepped to the edge of the building and looked down, hundreds of feet below was the slums of the city. These were the slums that were like living the high life for a darksider. John put his boots on the very edge of the building and lowered to a crouch, putting his talons in the ridge around the top edge of the building. Under the cowl he smiled and threw himself off his cape making a sound only describable as the fluttering of hundreds of tiny featherless wings.  
  
It was John Kane who stepped up to the edge of the building, but it was the Batman who jumped off.  
  
AUTHORS NOTE: I hope you enjoyed this story readers and I'll be glad to write some more, but to be honest I'm not going to bother unless I get some reviews. I know its shallow and shameless and whatever but unless I know people actually read this I'm not going to waste time writing more. I do however have a few future storylines lined up for some more chapters. If you want to know what eventually happened to Bruce and Terry, or what happened between Batman Beyond and the beginning of this tale, or even what some of the other Batmen were like then just send me a bloody review. But if you hated it then don't bother, any and all criticism is welcome though.  
  
Anyone interested in my writing should go to Another World or you can e- mail me on sam@sgcharrison.freeserve.co.uk 


	2. Domestic Disturbance

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As we're into the second chapter of this series I'm going to be expanding on the characters and base situation whilst hopefully addressing any unanswered questions from the first chapter. Any feedback is welcome through the reviews feature and by e-mail on sam@sgcharrison.freeserve.co.uk. Batman or any other DC trademarks that I have unwittingly infringed do not belong to me and I am only using them in a non-profit sense.

BATMAN: LEGACY 

PART TWO: DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE

It was only a small house really, little more than a bungalow that sat on a neglected back alley behind a monorail station in New Gotham. There were only six rooms in the house all told, four on the ground and two on the top floor. The goings on inside the house where a complete secret to the rest of the city as only about six people knew the place was there. The little house had only had two neighbours, one of which being the station which masked any noises coming from within, and an empty shop. Nobody on the station heard the cries and even if they had nobody would have cared, the slums of New Gotham were just one step up from the lawless No Man's Land of Old Gotham. The cries of pain stopped after a short time, the cries replaced by the sound of a woman sobbing. The back door of the house was flung open and slammed shut. A man stood in the snow of the cold New Gotham winter and lit a cigarette. It was snowing.

"You know what I can't understand boy?" the man's son was huddled with his arms wrapped around his knees in the corner of the small neglected garden, "why they can't use their fancy weather control to keep it warm all year round 'stead of making it cold."

"I don't know why either daddy," the boy said from the corner, he was only seven years old.

"That's because we're a lot alike boy, when you grow up I bet you're going to be just like me."

40 years later

"I would like to thank you all for voting me in as police commissioner, I like to think that I've served Gotham well during my time at central and for my first four years I vow to deliver on the promises I made during my campaign." The man at the podium paused in his speech for a moment to survey the large crowd assembled outside New Gotham's police station. "I promise an end to the days when a high crime rate plagued New Gotham and I also promise to expand the policing boundaries to take in _all _of New Gotham, even the sections that border Old Gotham."

A reporter from the crowd stood up and shouted out a question, "Ian Vance Gotham News. The viewers want to know what you're going to be doing about the recent upsurge in vigilante activity in the city?"

"I'm sorry but I'm not permitted to answer any questions on the Batman at this time," he said without showing the annoyance he felt, he began to get even more annoyed when the reporters all turned to leave, "I will however be addressing this problem in a press conference later in the week, when I have the Batman in custody."

Hands shot up and the commissioner resisted the urge to smile, "John Kane Gotham Times Online."

"I'm sorry, where did you say you were from?"

"Gotham Times Online, we're just starting up. So are you saying that you will arrest the Batman by the end of the week? That sounds awfully like one of those campaign promises you political types tend to forget about."

"You forget Mr. Kane, the campaign is over now. I promise that if the Batman is not in my cells at twelve midnight this Friday I will resign as commissioner of police in Gotham city." He paused again with a smile on his face as he looked for the face of the reporter in the crowd, but he couldn't see him, "Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your kind congratulations, I'll see you in the funny pages." 

"This could be a problem Master John," David said as he watched the Batman get into his costume, "my previous masters all had a somewhat mythic status within the police department, but this new commissioner has already shut down the Bat-Signal and pledged to have you in jail by Friday."

"Don't worry David, I'll be paying commissioner James a visit tonight before I start my patrols," the Batman said before activating the suit's circuitry, when he spoke again it was with the digitally modified voice of the Batman. The Batman's voice was deep and rough, specifically modified so that it was always the same, even if the Batman himself was different.

"Sir, I have to admit to not showing you all of the technology at your disposal," David said as he pressed a small button on the main console, then a large circular platform in the middle of the cave tilted so that it was at an angle pointing up, then a tunnel opened up in the cave ceiling, "there is a vehicle built into the suit's system, formed in a similar way as the fabric of the costume. Its pretty simple to activate, just press down on that module on your control belt," David pointed to the module at the Batman's left hip.

The Batman moved to stand just behind the tilted take off platform and pressed down on the module. Suddenly the black symbiotic material of his suit began to change form into a long thin vehicle and a chair moulded itself under him and as the windscreen formed in front of him he saluted quickly to David, a smile of excitement hidden by his cowl.

He sat at his desk, tan coat hanging from the antique hat-stand in the corner next to the room. It was like a scene from a film noir, purposefully so as James had always felt an affinity with the put-upon detectives of the mid twentieth century. The only light source came from the computer built into his mahogany desk, it cast shadows all about the room and its reflection was cast in the lenses of his spectacles. James took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose at the point where the pads made contact, and then he let out a long slow breath.

"Long day commissioner?" a voice came from the shadows of the corner.

"Who's there?" James said loudly, putting his glasses on quickly and flicking his gaze around the room, "my God."

"Batman will suffice," the figure said and moved from the shadows, the Batman's cape was drawn completely around him and so it looked as though his cowl continued down to the ground. The Batman's cape hid every human feature from the neck down when in this particular position and at the bottom of the cape were lots of thin black tendrils that moved and weaved as though with minds of their own. The entire image was quite imposing and the commissioner was doing his best not to show the fearful thoughts that were slipping into his brain.

"All I have to do is shout and you'll have the entire Gotham police department on your back," the Batman nodded and James knew that the nod signalled that it wouldn't matter, "I'm kidding myself aren't I? You'd be gone before I'd even finished the word," another nod, "so why are you here?"

"We need to talk."

"We need to talk? I guess you saw my press conference," James replied.

"I was there."

"I didn't see you."

"I didn't want you to."

"So what do we need to talk about?" James said, changing topic, "you want to discuss the wallpaper in your cell?"

"You can catch me, but you won't be able to keep me."

"You want to bet on that?"

"You already have. The odds are not in your favour." James could swear he heard the Batman's voice change slightly but he put it to one side.

"Thanks, its nice to know you're concerned. I already made my bed, so I'll lie in it.'

"Make sure the bedbugs don't bite."

"Very funny, I was told the Batman didn't have a sense of humour."

"Urban legend," the Batman replied then turned away, "you're not going to catch me so stop trying, don't get in my way or I'll be forced to get in yours."

"Hey! Wait," James said as the Batman stepped towards the window, "you can't just say that sort of thing and then-" the Batman leapt from the window and his cape billowed out and away to reveal momentarily that there was a man's body under all that black. Suddenly the commissioner was hit in the face with what seemed to be a gust of air accompanied by the sound of hundreds of little bat wings flapping in unison and when James looked again there was no sign of the Batman, or that he had ever been there in the first place.

"This is going to be an interesting week," the commissioner said to himself as he stared out the window, he walked over to his desk and activating the intercom, "Tracy, could you get me the mayor's office please? Thank you."

The Batman had finished his patrol of New Gotham and was now taking the rooftop express through the decaying streets of Old Gotham. He was about to cross the main street of Old Gotham, using the collapsed Wayne-Powers Corporation building as a bridge. The building was one of the major reasons the city refused to rebuild Old Gotham, it was thirty or forty stories high and had fallen over onto the rest of the street in one of the air raids of the war. Now it was an improvised shelter for much of Old Gotham's homeless citizens, the hundreds of cubicle offices making good shelter as the small areas were easy to keep warm. The Batman had picked up some food from the back of a restaurant in New Gotham and now carried it under his left arm as he dropped into the building through a window. When he landed he switched his cowl lenses to night-vision, scouring the environment for signs of squatters.

He switched again to infrared and saw the heat signatures of a few huddled figures in a bigger office down the hall. He walked quite quickly yet still silently down the corridor and tapped on the door even though it was horizontal and it fell open, there were five people sat huddled around a small fire made from office paper warming themselves. They all turned round to see the Batman climb into the little room and their eyes opened wide. He held out the package of food to them but they didn't move.

"Its food," he said, "take it, I promise I won't hurt you."

"Are you? Him?" Batman nodded, "The Batman?"

"Yes," he replied and turned to leave.

"I don't know how to say-"

"No thanks required," he said as he stepped up to climb out of the door.

"Wait!" an older man in the group said and stood up, "I wanted to ask you something," the Batman turned back and nodded for him to continue, "our daughter's gone missing, she went out for a walk two days ago and she hasn't come back. I've got a picture," the man pulled a crumpled photograph from his coat pocket and the Batman took it, putting it into a hidden pocket in his utility belt.

"Don't worry, I'll find her," he said and walked up to the smashed window opposite the door and leapt through, his cape billowing behind him then whipping back to turn the Batman into an aerodynamic human missile as his thrusters fired off and launched him into the air and away from the building.

-- -- --

Hope you liked this chapter all you stubborn readers, I only got a couple of reviews this time but quite a few e-mails (which are very welcome if you've got the urge to send along your criticism/ideas) so I decided to go easy on you lot this time and write a second chapter. I'm starting a third chapter and I will write it but I'm not posting it until the reviews on this story rise to AT LEAST six. I only say this because I once wrote a fifteen chapter story that took months only to find out I had about five readers. I figure if six people take the time to review then at least ten will have read it, as long as I've got at least ten readers then I'll happily finish the first story arc. I hope you've all enjoyed this so far and look forward to reading your reviews and e-mails.

By the way my website address is www.anotherworld.gq.nu


	3. Shakedown

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I finally got my set amount of reviews and such we're into the third chapter of this series I'm going to be starting to tell the main part of the story. Any feedback is welcome through the reviews feature and by e-mail on sam@sgcharrison.freeserve.co.uk. Batman or any other DC trademarks that I have unwittingly infringed do not belong to me and I am only using them in a non-profit sense.

As an added note I have had a request as to whether somebody can use my characters and main story concept to write their own story, if anyone wants to do this that's fine but will you please wait until the end of the first arc as there's going to be a few changes to the main characters. Also if you're going to write something with my concepts in it then please send it to me first for approval, because if its crap then I don't want to be associated with it (no offence).

BATMAN: LEGACY 

PART THREE: SHAKEDOWN

The Batman darted from building to building, leaping and running along the broken rooftops of Old Gotham as he searched out for anyone who looked a little shady. The suit's internal sensors picked up the heat signature of a fire nearby and he whipped his cape around him and shot into the air with a release of compressed air. He set down again on top of the building next to the fire and crept up to the side of the building to listen in to the conversation. The bat-suit went into stealth mode, the cape covering his entire body and altering colour to fit the background. The white of Batman's lenses darkened to black and the demonic horns on his cowl lowered so they were barely visible. If you looked closely you could see him but nobody liked to look too closely in Old Gotham.

"You hear the guys in the Wayne building lost the kid?"

"They _lost _her?"

"That's what they're saying, personally I reckon somebody got her."

The Batman had been waiting for this, David had advised him to shake down some locals for information and this was the closest camp to the Wayne building. He was about to leap down when one of the others started to speak.

"You shouldn't be saying stuff like that man, you gonna get us into trouble you know?"

"What? They won't come for us. We're nothing."

That was it, he had to find out who "they" were, and why they would've taken the girl. The Batman leapt from the rooftop and landed on the broken asphalt of the clearing, his cape swept up around him and a hood formed from its blackness to hide his features completely. He stepped up to the group of men gathered around the fire silently and stood still for a moment before being noticed.

"I want to know everything you can tell me about the little girl and her disappearance," he said loudly and clearly, addressing the closest member of the camp.

The men all stood up and massed into a small group, trying to threaten him, "Why should we tell you anything bro?"

"Because otherwise there will be consequences."

"Consequences huh?" one of the men said, stepping forward, "well looks like there's one of you and five of us, I'm not liking the odds on your part."

"I'll take that bet," the Batman replied and smiled under his mask. Leaping thirty feet into the air he whipped his cape back around, warping it back to normal as he spun over in a somersault to land among the group.

"What the-" one man shouted as the Batman's elbow was sharply introduced to his nose, followed by a short spurt of blood and a short scream. The Batman grasped the edge of his cape and swung it at the face of another man, forcing him to the ground. He pitched forward and brought his leg up to hit a man behind him in the kneecap, a satisfying crack followed by a scream erupted from the man and the Batman didn't have to check to see whether he was down. The man in front of the Batman threw both his fists in an attempt to box his ears but the Batman caught these swiftly and pulled them up under his shoulders. He jolted them upwards and bent the arms in ways that arms were not supposed to bend, throwing the man up and over his shoulders.

The Batman whipped his masked head around to see the man who had threatened him running away, not once looking back at the rest of the group, as they lay prostrate on the ground. He flung his right arm forward and the spikes on his glove flew through the air, embedding themselves in the fugitive's right calf. The fugitive fell and rolled to the ground with pain as the Batman drew up on him, slowly, calmly, menacingly. The Batman came up on the man and took his left arm in his gloved hand and pulled it back, he pushed his foot on the man's shoulder and wrenched the man's arm from it's socket. The man screamed out louder than any of the others and underneath his mask the Batman grimaced, he kept hold of his arm and bent his head right down to the man's ear.

"I want to know everything you can tell me about the little girl and her disappearance."

"The buzz on the streets is that she's been taken," he said, "I can't tell you by who."

The Batman pushed the man's arm a little further out of its joint.

The man shouted with pain again, "Okay, okay. I wouldn't take this as gospel man but I know this guy who lives up in the slums, he said there's a van comes in every day from Old Gotham to New Gotham. Suspicious too, he swears he heard someone banging on the doors from the inside once."

"Give me a name."

"Dixon," the Batman pulled lightly on his arm again, "Charles Dixon."

"Thank you," the Batman said, letting go of the man's arm, "you might see me again."

The young man stood on a street corner of the slums of New Gotham, he had spiky black hair and a clean-shaven face that made him look sixteen years old. He was wearing black leather trousers and jacket with a grey long-sleeved t-shirt underneath, a cigarette was drooping from his lips as he accosted passers-by. He opened his jacket to show a small collection of different timepieces that hung from his coat lining on display. He had a wide smile on his face and was offering his wares to anyone and everyone, especially those who gave him more than a casual glance. He dropped his cigarette butt to the pavement without putting it out and struck a match to light the replacement he had already placed in his mouth. When he put out the match there was a shadow on the rooftop, something moved towards him. The shadow had horns and its blank, white eyes stared down at him devoid of any emotion yet still managing to frighten him more than anything he'd ever seen before in the depths of Old Gotham. The man turned and ran, his cigarette falling from his hand and crushed under his footsteps. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, tripping twice over the uneven paving of the streets of New Gotham's suicide slum. He ran as far along the road as he could before becoming out of breath, he took a quick look around and could not see the shadow as he ducked into a dark alley. He gazed up to look at the full moon and began to calm down, he'd probably only imagined seeing him anyway. The Batman didn't actually exist.

There was a short jangle as the watches in his coat clinked together, violently being pulled by a black-gloved hand.

The Batman held the young tradesman up against the wall, his feet dangling in the air as he was held aloft by the Batman's enhanced strength.

"Charles Dixon I presume?"

"Look dude, I'm sorry about selling off all these fakes but I got to make a living somehow," Dixon replied with a stammer in his voice that reeked of fear.

"I don't care about your little business empire, I'm here about the van I heard you saw."

"It drives past that corner every morning just before dawn, all black, tires and everything. Don't often see real cars in New Gotham, it must be antique."

"You know anything about this little girl?" the Batman asked, showing the photo he had kept in his utility belt.

"I saw her, last week some guys were chasing her down back the way the van comes. They picked her up between the two of them and tied her up, then they carried her off."

"When you see the van," the Batman said after a moment's thought, "what direction is it going in?"

"I only ever saw it go from Old to New, never the other way around," Dixon replied, "nobody ever saw it go out, only ever comes in."

"Thanks," the Batman replied as he put him down, "I'll be in touch. Stop wasting your life on this crap, get a proper job," he advised before running silently into the shadows and whipping his cape around him, launching himself into the air.

"Shit," Dixon sighed to himself as he slid down to sit on the floor of the alley, his head in his hands, "I'm so screwed."

It had taken two days for the Batman to set up an observation camp undetected on the supporting column of one of New Gotham's elevated highways, he had worked slowly and methodically to bring any equipment he needed under cover of darkness, to not be seen. It was about midnight when he finally settled into the hidden nest up above the streets, he sat in complete stillness listening to his police scanner for any emergencies that required his attention. He had already ducked out of his nest once that night to help rescue some unfortunates from a car accident that had happened almost directly overhead. For six hours he waited, apart from his short vacation, in complete stillness hidden in his watchtower.

As he saw the first rays of dawn he began to realise that dressed in all black he would stick out like a sore thumb on his way back to the cave. Normally he would have returned by now, returned to eat, returned to sleep. He was tired and hungry, but as a former darksider he was used to it and it hardly bothered him. He was beginning to think he'd been misinformed when he saw Charlie Dixon walking up to his usual spot and begin to harass passers-by. He pulled an old-style batarang from his utility belt and aimed, just as was about to throw it in an attempt to scare Charlie out of his line of work a black van screeched around the corner. The Batman took only moments to change posture, aim and throw a tracking beacon that firmly attached by magnets to the roof of the van. He sat in his nest and watched the van disappear around the next turning, waiting for the confirmation that his tracker had worked. After a few seconds a yellow dot appeared on a small map in the corner of his display and he smiled under the mask, a good night's work. He activated his cape and switched it into stealth mode as he left the nest and crawled stealthily along the underside of the overpass.

He took a moment to look down at the road again and saw Charlie Dixon staring straight at him. The Batman fired off the batarang before leaping clear of the road and swinging on a jump-line to the roof of a nearby building.

Charlie Dixon, or Chuck to his friends, stood with his mouth agape looking at the ground. Literally touching the side of his boot there was a large, black, sharp bat embedded a few inches into the concrete of the pavement. Chuck bent down and with some effort pried it loose, pocketing it before running away around the corner again.

_____________________

Hope you liked this chapter, as always comments and whatever are always welcome. I have e-mail and too few of you have used it, but I'm not forcing you to in order to get another chapter (that'll happen after the first arc). As frequent readers know, if you don't review you won't get another chapter. Simple as that. If I don't know you're reading it then why bother writing it?

Contact me at: sam@sgcharrison.freeserve.co.uk

Visit my web-site at: www.anotherworld.gq.nu 

Those of you who do visit my website will be treated to more of my writing (unavailable on ff.net) and soon earlier updates of this and other stories. The rule is pretty much that if you want to read these chapters before they come out on ff.net then go to my site.

Peace out, Sam.


	4. Appendix One: The Bat Suit

AURHOR'S NOTE: I've received several e-mails asking me about the Batman's new costume. I did the usual celebrity-like thing (not that I think I'm a celebrity) and ignored them completely. Then I had something that I've only had a few times before, a repeat reviewer. This repeat reviewer who is only known as the Edge to me said he wished he could visualise what the suit looks like so I thought I'd give a complete description in a little extra chapter. Sorry everybody who was hoping for an extra chapter or something but maybe when I do add one I'll turn this into a separate story on FF.net. Batman does not belong to me but most of the costume ideas do. By the way I'd like to tell one reviewer that the Batman's name is John Kane not Jake, but thanks for reviewing anyway.

BATMAN: LEGACY

APPENDIX ONE: THE BAT-SUIT

Those of you who have read Spider-Man will know what I'm talking about when I start talking about a symbiotic costume, the Batman's new suit is one of these. However some parts of it are mechanical and these extend from the back and head pieces. I'm going to go through the parts of the suit one by one and hopefully you'll all enjoy reading about it.

THE COWL - _Aesthetics_

The Batman's cowl looks much the same as it did in the twentieth century except that none of his face is visible. The brow is more pronounced and shadows over the eyes but this is to house the circuitry required for the complicated audio-visual systems. The cowl is pitch black and has no highlights of any colour, the ears of the cowl are longer and more finely tapered making them overall thinner.

THE COWL – _Tech Spec_

The Batman's cowl is his Achilles heel, what with it being the only part of the costume that is not bullet-proof as Jeremiah finds out in chapter one. It's not bullet-proof because it is the only part of the costume that is replaced, each Batman's cowl is buried with him. It's also meant to be carried with the Batman in case of emergency, like say if he has to save a life and still needs to protect his identity. It has all the inbuilt features of the 20th century Batman's cowl such as different modes of view like IR and NVG but it also has some new features like a danger assessment mode for leaps, automatic targeting for projectiles built into the gauntlets, x-ray scanner for finding hidden weapons, built-in radar like a real bat's and a scanner that can be used for multiple uses like surreptitiously obtaining DNA samples and fingerprints people at a distance.

The cowl also has a sensory enhancer which improves every one of the Batman's senses, except taste of course because unlike Batman or Batman Beyond's costume there is no way to access the mouth. Air is filtered through the suit and stored in microscopic pockets in his back in order to prevent gas attacks and to allow to Batman to stay underwater for several hours.

THE CAPE – _Aesthetics/Tech Spec_

The cape is made of a similar symbiotic fabric as the main part of the suit but it is stronger and more independent. The cape is kept in the back piece of the suit, a long black piece of armour that goes along the Batman's shoulders with a small triangular container in the top middle of the Batman's back with contains the cape. The ends of the cape are more densely packed than the rest of it, compensating for the inability to weight them and it makes an extremely effective weapon. The Batman's cape can be whipped around with the same force as being hit in the face with a lead pipe, by a very strong man. Along the bottom of the cape are the tendrils as described by Commissioner James in chapter two, these only come into effect when the Batman has the cape in its "cloak" mode. This is when the material extends around his entire body from the shoulders down as the original Batman often does. The cape can also be used to form a hood to hide the Batman's head if need arises. Going back to my previous point the tendrils at the bottom of the cape are simply a way to intimidate anyone who sees him. The tendrils move and interweave on a specially written program that uses randomised equations to determine their movement.

When John flaps his cape as the Batman it automatically triggers the suit's thrusters, on of the pieces of machinery that extend from the shoulders. The cape also becomes lighter or denser in order to either slow a fall or lengthen a glide.

THE MAIN BODY – _Aesthetics_

The main suit is jet black except for the bat symbol, not unlike the one sported by Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond, however the symbol has no definite colour and can be changed by the current Batman. In case you wondered John Kane is sporting a grey bat insignia which is also a very stealthy choice as it can be muted to black quicker. The Batman wears a silver-coloured utility belt with modules that are 3D oval shapes in which he keeps controls for the suit and gadgets like a laser torch, small amounts of explosives, smoke and gas pellets and an emergency first-aid kit.

THE MAIN BODY – _Tech Spec_

The bat on his chest is where he can project his own Bat-Signal is he wants to, although he has yet to find use for it. The suit's symbiotic fabric is of alien origin and nobody fully understands its capabilities, not even the Batman or his manservant. The suit has an internal power core that is powered by the absorption of kinetic energy from impacts such as a bullet. When the Batman is shot the symbiotic fabric absorbs the kinetic energy and stops the bullet cold before it has even penetrated the fabric more than a millimetre, this is often a life saving feature in prolonged battles as the Batman can redirect absorbed energy into his strength enhancers to give him more physical power. The suit's power source is located at the back of the utility belt and is housed in an almost impenetrable skin of the absorbing fabric, which is itself inside an impact-resistant box.

The suit's thrusters are also located on the outside of the Batman's thighs and these push the Batman into the air with a burst of compressed air from the suit's own reserve. These thrusters are hidden when not in use and only open for the mere seconds it takes to shoot the Batman into the air up to five hundred feet.

FINAL TECHNICAL POINTS

The Batman's gloves and boots are specially designed to cling to almost any surface. They work on an electro-magnetic concept which uses the Batman's own bioelectricity (somehow, I'm not really sure) to artificially increase the attraction between the particles of his boots and gloves and the particles of the surface he wishes to cling to.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope that this wasn't too technical for all you out there, because then I've probably made a hundred mistakes as I know nothing about all this stuff. If you have any questions you must surely know my e-mail address by now (sam@sgcharrison.freeserve.co.uk) and you can always REVIEW. Not that I'm hinting anything… I will put some more stuff up in future and I promise to have this all up on www.anotherworld.gq.nu soon as at the moment Legacy is purely on FF.net. I'm probably going to post this on FF.net for a while until I get some readers looking at Another World then I'll post the appendices exclusively on AW. Some readers have asked about the Bat-mobile already and I'm working on getting a better description and an artist to draw it so you never know. The next appendix (that I will probably start after this story arc) will be about the history of the world up to the point we jumped in and in particular how Gotham became two cities, the shining futuristic metropolis and the ruined slum. Enjoy your adventures in Gotham and see you next time.


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